Capturing New Beginnings: The Photographic Journey of Legal Name Changes in Georgia
New Beginnings
“New Beginnings.” The phrase has been used in art as long as there has been art. Everyone loves a fresh start, no matter how oft we’ve heard it. In photography, it sometimes means a change in season or time of day, light, position. In some cases, it means an actual change of subject. If there is one person capable of understanding this concept, it’s photographer Stephanie Alison.
With a penchant for seductive hues and poignant textures, the artist’s Pro Photo blog mixes the visual storytelling approach with the soul and flair of personal journeys. Take a look at her experience Chronicling Names and New Lives on the Positive Ashram blog post. To quote some examples, she starts out with “It’s December 28, 2015, which is not the new year I’m used to. But nonetheless, this is, for most, the post-holiday peaceful time before a New Year begins. A new beginning.” “To me…the display of my name is my identity-making the announcement seem even larger than the changing of the year. It was how I started to reinvent myself…”
How would one make it about the experience and process of the legal name change in Georgia? Document on video and in photography the moments before, during, and after. Create collections that show your physical environment of the court, and portray its smallness and gravity. Create portraits of the people involved in the process, including yourself with warm colors, dramatic angles, and-where relevant-exaggerated differences between light and darkness. The transitions should practically provide an artistic feel on their own, but in this case, we must help them. Instead of focusing on clear blue skies, clear-eyed smiles, and sunny dispositions, try capturing shots that show the venue devoid of people, harsh lighting from cold stark fluorescent lights, faces stiff with tension and resolve. There is a time for the happy, emotive style so prevalent in the Stephanie Alison blog articles. There is also a time for gravitas. Times of change often fluctuate between both sides and shades of emotion. You can display this through visual storytelling. It need not be just a lean process of indicating emotions with bright colors and soft edges. To paraphrase the author (thankfully posted on the Whitney Lee Pullen article), a new legal name in Georgia or anywhere else represents “a demonstration of otherness, freedom, and challenge.”
One of the big things to remember is that it’s a common theme throughout life: the search for identity, the reinforcement of identity, the challenges and triumphs, and the art that blooms out of it. Imagine how you might visualize a baby transitioning from baby food to solid food. Observe the movement of the fingers, the pursing of the lips, the furrowed brow, the embattled, contemplative look. Think about how much of us is every moment when we are at our best and at our worst. Growth is stifled. Observing ourselves become humans capable of more autonomy is a crucial theme for the personal photo-blog. Show growth, show contrast between cultures, perspectives, and appearances. Look at how it might look to interweave a period of spiritual change with the physical change of identity. While the photographer beauty of colors and shapes is amazing (with outlines that smoothen imperfections), there is also the theme of what makes us who we truly are despite our appearances.
The legal name change in Georgia: How would you visual tell the story? Ask questions. What is it that I fear most? Illustrate the paralyzing effect of it, or use a common experience like propping books on a desk with open-ended questions that relatives, friends, and strangers will answer differently. Would the answers portray your transition as a good one, bad one, manageable one, scary one, overblown one? In this way, is a name change less about the name and more about the identity and experience? Is it a label, or are the words used to describe it a projection of what we might do with ourselves if only others would believe in us more?
If you want to document a legal name change in Georgia, glimpse into the profound experience of who we are and what we have the ability to be. It might be a great motivation, but it might also be a superb investment into the future.